Versus Look Up Trending Now Safety Net Say More Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Mashable Selects Getting Technical with Mashable Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List In My Bag Mashable @Home All Series Critical'Musk' documentary pulled from theatres after just two weeks The film concludes its theatrical run with a $571,902 box-office performance. Despite its critical praise, Alex Gibney's documentary about the world's richest man is ending its theatrical run after just two weeks, according to entertainment news site Showbiz411 . Upon its release on Oct. 9th, was shown in just four theatres in two cities nationwide, but that number rose to over 450 by the second (and ultimately final) week of its theatrical run, though the total take, according to, was a paltry $571,902, making it an unmitigated flop. But could there be something else at play here other than simple box office math? Stay connected with the hottest stories of the day and the latest entertainment news.

'The public distaste for the AI industry extends to its leaders.' 'The public distaste for the AI industry extends to its leaders.' The campaign ad begins with a clear, idyllic stream that suddenly turns sludge-brown as two concrete datacenters slam onto its banks. Our farmland," a deep-voiced narrator says. "Because Brent Taylor wrote the law allowing datacenters to take over Tennessee." The attack ad, paid for by the Democrat-aligned Three Star Pac and targeting a Tennessee Republican congressional candidate, is one of more than 150 midterm election campaign commercials across the US focused on datacenters or the artificial intelligence industry. At debates and at rallies, in mailers and online ads, the burgeoning AI industry has taken center stage, as both Republican and Democratic candidates try to convince voters that their opponents will put the unpopular facilities in voters' backyards.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Getting Technical with Mashable Mashable Selects Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Say More Versus Trending Now In My Bag Mashable @Home Top creators, ranked Creator Playbook All Series Elon Musk admits he'got carried away' leading DOGE The billionaire agreed that he was basically drunk on the Trump administration's power. Amanda Yeo is an Assistant Editor at Mashable, covering entertainment, culture, tech, science, and social good. Based in Australia, she writes about everything from video games and K-pop to movies and gadgets. Elon Musk says he got carried away when working with the White House, and now thinks he shouldn't have continued running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for so long. SEE ALSO: Elon Musk says he'll give every kid in America a SpaceX share in 2027 President Donald Trump established DOGE within days of his inauguration last January, tasking vocal supporter Musk to lead it in reducing alleged government overspending.

Democracy blindsides Silicon Valley's power players looking to transform the world with AI'The push against datacenters speaks to the frustration of people who don't feel they are making the choices in their lives' The Stanford ethicist Rob Reich was once invited to a dinner organized by a Silicon Valley mogul to discuss what a state designed to maximize science and tech powered by commercial models might look like. The gathered technologists were drawn to the idea of building a small nation-state dedicated to the endeavor, Reich recalls in " System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot it". When Reich asked whether this state would be a democracy, he got a cool no. "Democracy is too slow, and it holds science back," he was told. "To optimize for science, we need a beneficent technocrat in charge."

Following mass layoffs in 2022 and 2023, many tech workers turned against their employers. When liberal politicians also rallied against Silicon Valley, their backers turned to Donald Trump. In the spring of 2020, as a new and highly contagious virus spread throughout the country, the US came to a standstill. The economy shut down, cities emptied, and white-collar workers were sent home en masse. Platforms like Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams surged in usage as WFH became ubiquitous. From remote schooling and virtual weddings to app-based grocery delivery and livestreamed concerts, the pandemic accelerated and cemented society's increasing reliance on digital platforms. Already one of the most powerful forces in the American economy, the tech sector suddenly became the infrastructure underpinning every aspect of life.

Many of the tech billionaires who built our world have taken the wrong lessons from their favorite science fiction. A fter reading Jill Lepore's The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, I have a new destination for a time machine, should I ever finally get my hands on one. I'd set the dial to some night in the late 1970s or '80s and visit the boyhood rooms of the Silicon Valley titans Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman. Then I'd confiscate all of their science fiction. As young people, the future billionaires were spending hours (under their covers with flashlights, I imagine) consuming stories about killer robots or Mars colonies. What they seemed not to get--maybe couldn't get--was that these were cautionary tales, stories that projected deep societal worries into space or onto a future many millennia away.

The datacenter fight could permanently transform US politics. Which party will seize advantage? Bryce Gustafson has been knocking on doors in Indiana for more than a decade. The lead organizer with Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), a consumer and environmental organization, he usually encounters a mix of reactions when he's out canvassing; whatever issue he's talking about, there's always at least a few people on the other side. But at a recent festival in the rural town of Monrovia, Indiana, he was struck by an unusual spirit of unity.

A.I. Is Now a Major Election Issue As Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's newly elected Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, put it, "People really effing hate data centers." This summer, as the ideologically fractious Democratic primaries begin to recede and the politically pivotal midterm elections edge nearer, candidates and voters alike have had their attention drawn by vast, humming edifices newly constructed on the outskirts of towns. Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former public-health official who finished a deft insurgent campaign by becoming Michigan's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, sounded a theme that helped decide primaries in his state and in Kansas last week. "People really effing hate data centers," he said. That kind of consensus is rare in politics right now.

'Maga is a cult of grievance that seeks to purge its enemies by demonising them through absurd and surreal propaganda' Gil Durán. 'Maga is a cult of grievance that seeks to purge its enemies by demonising them through absurd and surreal propaganda' Gil Durán. 'If we don't fight back, we don't have a future': the journalist taking on the'tech fascists' of Silicon Valley I n April, Gil Durán was permanently banned from Elon Musk's X for posting just two words. Durán was responding to a post from the tech company Palantir outlining its 22 point "technological manifesto", which praised American "hard power", western culture and AI weapons, denounced inclusivity and called for compulsory national service. Durán responded: "TLDR: Fascism" (TLDR is short for "too long, didn't read").

Traders work on the floor of the NYSE in New York Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., June 22, 2026. Traders work on the floor of the NYSE in New York Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., June 22, 2026. The markets are souring on artificial intelligence, but is this the bubble being burst? Today, we're discussing a rocky week for the AI industry's finances and how California's proposed billionaire's tax is changing the political posture of the state's governor. AI is facing a financial stress test, but the bubble hasn't popped After the share prices of Alphabet, Samsung, and SK Hynix dropped, a global stock selloff caused markets worldwide to slump.